


Best Friends, Not Forgotten

by Independence1776



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Canonical Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 11:31:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/785577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Independence1776/pseuds/Independence1776
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While researching ways people can "cheat" death, Dairine stumbles across information on Time Lords and recognizes <a href="http://www.youngwizards.com/ErrantryWiki/index.php/Man_In_The_Bar,_the">The Man in the Bar</a>. She decides to go find him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Friends, Not Forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to my betas Shadowsinfire and Elleth! For Dairine, it's set before _A Wizard of Mars_ , though there are minor spoilers for it. For the Doctor, it's set between “The Big Bang” and “A Christmas Carol.” Written for dai_stiho's only challenge.

Dairine looked at Spot's screen, slowly scrolling through the display. After her dream with the mobiles, she had started her research into how different species cheat death in earnest. There were a few strange listings in Roshaun's family history, but nothing like his. And those listings… What other types of mortality were out there, and how did modified mortals cheat death? Given what Logo had said about the universe breaking rules whenever it could, she wanted-- needed-- more information. So she accessed the Orders of Being, figuring it was the most likely place to start.

There wasn't much there. Roshaun was unique, as far as she could tell. She blew the bangs off her forehead, wondering where else in the manual to look. And then one entry she had never seen before caught her eye-- Time Lord.

She clicked on the link, and to her surprise, it was a very short entry, topped by an image cycling through eleven faces.

_Time Lord_

_A nearly extinct species from the lost planet Gallifrey. The lone survivor is The Doctor. All Time Lords had a binary vascular system and the capability to regenerate twelve times, replacing bodies either by choice or when mortally wounded. They were highly intelligent, and discovered how to travel through time and space via living ships commonly called TARDISes. When they existed, it was their self-imposed mandate to police Time._

Dairine paused briefly, wondering if she should look at something more relevant to Roshaun's situation, but the image at the page's header was enough to decide her. There was a face she recognized, indelibly carved into her memory, even though she'd only seen him once and had never learned his name. She clicked the image, and the screen showed the page for _The Doctor_. Here, the images were laid out in rows in a box, directly above the sparse biography which stated little more than he traveled widely with companions-- currently people named Amelia Pond and Rory Williams-- and loved Earth, especially the UK, and that he'd had no choice but to destroy his planet to save the Universe from his own people and an ARESH-HAV species called the Daleks. For him to continue going after such a decision… Dairine was in awe. But it was what he did hopping around the universe that was the interesting bit. She'd known wizards weren't the only ones fighting entropy and the other evils of the Lone Power, but he was the most visible she'd heard of.

Her Doctor was the fifth one, and she brushed a finger against the static image. She glanced at the last picture, at the young-faced, brown-haired man-- his eleventh body. “Spot, can we write a spell to let us know when he returns to Earth?”

The biography cleared from the screen, and the software she used to manually input spell data appeared. She cracked her knuckles and began typing.

* * * * *

Three days later, as she walked down the driveway, Spot in her arms, he beeped. _He's in London_. Dairine paused, looked around, and then walked into the backyard, dumping her backpack on the ground outside the clearing in the trees. Remembering that overlays were likely, she adjusted the teleportation spell to accommodate them. She appeared twenty feet from her target: the TARDIS disguised as a police public call box. The door opened just as she came to the front, and the “young” man in tweed stared out, holding a buzzing silver baton with a green light at the end.

“Hi,” she said. “I'm Dairine. You're the Doctor, right?”

The man stared at her and at the computer she held in her arms, narrowing his eyes and then widening them a few seconds later. “We met at the Crossings, didn't we? But I had a different body, and--”

Dairine grinned. “Yeah, we did. But the manual showed me your current incarnation.”

The Doctor grinned in return and stepped out of the doorway, slipping the now silent baton-thing into a jacket pocket. “I wondered what happened to you. It's not often I help wizards.” He gestured at the open door. “If you don’t mind telling me, of course. I mean, we could go to a restaurant or something if you don’t want to come in. Or--”

Dairine stepped into the TARDIS, and even knowing she was dimensionally transcendental, it was still a bit of a shock. It was one thing to read about it, and another thing entirely to experience. The Doctor closed the door behind them, his grin growing wider and a bit wicked. “Well?”

“She's wonderful. The bigger on the inside thing is amazing.” Dairine bent and put Spot on the floor, where he immediately grew legs and eyes and began scuttling around.

The Doctor pointed at Spot. “Your computer didn't do _that_ last time. How did-- What happened?”

Dairine shrugged and mounted the stairs to look closer at the console. It wasn't often she saw a mind-machine combination so complex. But she refrained from touching anything, not wanting to be rude to either being. He stood next to her, saying nothing as she looked the TARDIS over, but pride was evident in every line of his body. She eventually leaned against the railing. “Spot wasn't truly sapient until we met the Motherboard. She's a planet-sized computer chip, with her own child-species of mobiles. We're co-parents, actually, and Spot was upgraded when we made contact.” She shrugged again, looking up into his eyes. “That's really why I'm here. If you hadn't helped me, they'd have never come into being and the Lone Power would never have been redeemed.” She straightened, and said formally in the Speech, “Thank you.”

The Doctor replied in the same language, “You are very welcome.” He switched back to English. "Now, I'm curious, Dairine. Information about Time Lords is restricted, even for wizards. How did you come across it?"

Dairine blinked, thrown by the sudden shift in conversation, forcibly reminded that no matter how young he appeared, he was over nine hundred years old and had done things she hoped she never had to do. "I was researching how various species avoided death."

The Doctor looked completely bewildered, running a hand through his hair. "Why?”

Dairine clenched her jaw. “I lost my best friend recently. He's not dead; he's just gone. I'm trying to find him, and at the same time, trying to learn to live up to what he entrusted to me. It's… it's one of the hardest things I've ever done.”

“Ah,” he sighed, his body language subdued along with his voice. “I had someone like that. She's gone now, too. Not dead, not really lost, just different. She doesn't-- and can't-- remember me, or what she did. She's happy, though. I suppose that's all we can ask for, in the end.” His gaze sharpened. “Tell me about him.”

Dairine turned around and hooked her arms over the railing, looking down at Spot staring at the Gallifreyan shining on the floor. “Too many people thought we were going to be boyfriend and girlfriend. But we weren't. We're-- were-- _are_ friends, best friends. Why's it so hard for people of the opposite sex to simply be friends?”

The Doctor sat down on the glass floor, leaning against the railing. “Because humans-- not just humans, many species, come to think of it, but humans are the worst-- place so high a value on sex, for recreation and procreation, that they don't really understand that a romantic relationship among lovers isn't the defining or pinnacle relationship people can have.” He looked up at her, brushing the bangs out of his eyes. “Anyway, you're too young for that sort of thing.”

Dairine made a face. “I'm not even interested. Even you assumed--”

“No, I didn't,” the Doctor said, scrambling to his feet. “I said you were too young. You haven't really reached puberty yet. Enjoy being young. That sort of thing will come far too soon.”

“You sound like my father,” she muttered.

The Doctor laughed. “Amy said I was worse than her aunt the second time we met.” He sobered. “I can't tell you what to do, and the only advice I have is to keep looking. Sometimes, impossible things really do happen.”

She turned around to look at him. “The manual says he isn't dead. It says _nothing_ , and it should have at least some information. But I don't know--”

He kissed the top of her forehead. "You'll find out, one way or another.” He stepped back and studied her. “I think you need a break.”

“This _is_ one. I'm supposed to be in school right now.”

The Doctor laughed. “School isn't the most important thing for you at this moment. You need a bit of fun. Your friend would--”

“Say that I'm entirely too focused, that I will burn myself out, and that it would do both of us a service for me to take a few hours off.”

“Right. And given that wizards aren't usually allowed to travel into the past for recreational purposes, where would you like to go?”

“Just one trip?”

“Just one.” He smiled in remembrance. “The last time I said that to someone, it ended up being for far longer. But you're still young-- I can't risk keeping you away for longer than a day or two, personal time.”

Dairine nodded, thoughts flying. One trip… The moon landing, that was more Nita's thing. Definitely not anything she'd learned about in school. There was something, though, that she'd dreamed of occasionally, never telling anyone. Nita and their father wouldn't understand, not really. “Mann's Chinese Theater, May 25, 1977.”

The Doctor grinned. “Star Wars?”

“Star Wars.”

* * * * *

They didn't end up seeing just _Star Wars_ , but the other two movies on opening day as well. She had never imagined that someone who had lived so long and done so much could be just as much of a geek as she was. As the echoes of the TARDIS faded away into the dusk, Nita poked her head out the back door. “Dair, why'd you skip school again? Dad's furious. It's nearly summer vacation. Couldn't you just wait--”

Dairine smiled, a small, secret one, not really bothered by her father's anger. She hadn't skipped school for the hell of it, or because she hadn't felt like going. “I had a debt to repay.”

That was the only explanation she ever gave.


End file.
